By Crime Historian Laura James, Esquire (c) 2005-18 WELCOME to my study of historic true crime, a literary blog where the chairs rest at the intersection of history, journalism, law, and murder, and the shelves are filled with the finest true crime literature. STEAL FROM THIS LIBRARY AND IT'S PISTOLS AT DAWN.

October 2006

Are you interested in Lizzie Borden, the Lindbergh kidnapping and the Sam Sheppard case? Our members takes turns presenting challenges for the rest of the group to solve. Sometimes we work in teams. Come and join our scavenger hunts where we search for and share info about hundreds of crimes and deaths, both famous and obscure.

The ghoulish wits behind the Crime Challenge group have assembled a devil of a true crime quiz to mark the day.

If, in assembling your answers to this scavenger hunt, you come across three or more sites that you have already bookmarked, then you read way too much true crime, friend.

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Welcome to the 2006 Halloween Scavenger Hunt!

Rules and Guidelines: Below you will find 25 questions, worth one point a piece, plus a Bonus worth up to ten points. Sources/links for your answers, when not specifically requested, are not required but appreciated. Remember, if you play, do not post your answers to the list! Please include all of your answers, in order, in one private E-mail to Chele and Rachael: Chele Gia0209 ~AT~aol.com Rachael rachael27 ~AT~ earthlink.net

DEADLINE -- Answers are due by Sunday, November 5 by noon, PST. Good luck! Have fun!

1. This German serial killer was reputedly the first interviewed in depth by a psychiatrist. What did he answer when asked if he had any regrets about his life and the vicious murders he committed. (Give the quote.)

2. Although not sorry about any of the thousands of crimes he takes credit for -- including having fed the body parts of six of his twenty-one murder victims to crocodiles -- this killer apparently did have at least one regret in life. Give the quote where he said what it was.

3. Find a picture of one of this California shutterbug's famous photos which he took of his terrified victims before he killed them.

4. Give the text of the partly type-written, partly hand-written letter this mass murderer left beside his wife's body before setting off on his infamous shooting rampage.

5. This Mexican-born actor survived the conversion from silent movies to "talkies" but did not survive the two house guests whom he invited in one evening in 1968. Find a picture of his Frank Lloyd Wright home in which he was tortured and found murdered on Halloween.

6. This serial killer was sent to Death Row himself for the murder of a Death Row inmate. His numerous attempts of poisoning the inmate failed but his constructed bomb didn't. Know who he is? Good! Find a picture of his vehicle and tell what the sign on the back of it said.

7. The dog made me do it, the dog made me do it!! So this serial killer claimed. Find a picture of the parking ticket which led to his identification and conviction.

8. Find a picture of the first missing person to appear on a milk carton.

9. One of the nights this sadistic serial killer duo chose to hunt their unfortunate prey was Halloween night of 1979. Find a picture of the inside of the vehicle that they used for their crimes.

10. One of the killers in the preceding question often signs his letters from CA's Death Row with the name of a tool. Find a picture of one of these tools.

11. The partner of the killer in the preceding question not only caused nightmares but apparently has had a few of his own. Find a drawing of one he sketched.

12. This list-making serial killer not only kept a cryptic list referring to his victims, he also keeps a list of the CDs he has in his California Death Row cell. (He's only allowed to have twelve at a time.) Find his list on which he designates what he's got and which ones he's willing to trade.

13. This serial killer has been accused of a lot of things but being a bad cook isn't one of them! In fact one of his/her former tenants claimed that "Every Dinner at ________'s was like Thanksgiving Dinner!" Wonder if s/he has a good pumpkin pie recipe! Find a picture of this killer's cookbook.

14. In July 1984 the patrons of a California fast food restaurant found they had chosen to eat at the same time a mass murderer had decided to make his last stand. Find a link to the denied March employment application which may have helped set him off.

15. One of three convicted for the May 5, 1993 rape/murder of three little boys, Jessie Misskelley gave a description of what happened that day during his post-conviction ride to prison to serve out his sentence. What did the Deputy report that Misskelley answered when he was asked how the three young victims were kept under control while being raped and not tied yet. (Give the quote.)

16. Drawings of three cannibalistic serial killers (one departed life in 1936 and the other two in 1994) grace the front of a "loving" greeting card. Find a picture of it.

17. The judge in this 1997 case must have thought the second degree murder conviction (with mandatory life sentence) was some sort of early Halloween joke or something for he reduced it to involuntary manslaughter, sentenced the defendant to time served (279 days) and released him (or her). Find a picture of the victim.

18. He confessed to murdering seven people, including five prostitutes the police did not previously suspect him of killing. Want to hear and see his confession? All you need to do is purchase the DVD from his DAD!! Give his link and the bank routing number where we can send our bank wires.

19. After 30 years of silence, this now-convicted serial killer suddenly resurfaced in 2004. Find a picture of the driver's license he mailed to a local newspaper.

20. Give the text of the wacky poem the killer in the above question wrote to or about one of his victims.

21. Find a facsimile of the signature or "logo" that the killer in the above two questions designed for himself.

22. As though out of a horror flick, on Halloween night in 2004, two young woman were slashed to death in California as a third roommate listened downstairs in terror and tried to summon help. Find a picture of a package of cigarettes, the brand which brought a confession in this case.

23. The longest-incarcerated inmate in the State Pen of this western state died earlier this year, presumably of natural causes. Find a picture of the cover of the book Anne Rule wrote about him.

24. This mystery rider exited singing when he was recently executed in Florida. Give the text of his death warrant.

25. Find a picture representing the last meal of an executed prisoner who hoped that the choice would mean that a tree would grow from his body.

BONUS Let's have a Halloween party! You are the host/hostess. Your guests are all the killers you want to invite, although no blood will be spilt at this party. The more guests on your list, the more points you will get, with guest lists compared and ten points given to the host with the biggest party. Easy! Oh, there's just one little rule. Your guests must come in costume. To get your guests counted, please show a picture of each one and include his or her name and what ! ;s/he is dressed as. For instance, we suppose this killer will be invited to everyone's party so you may want to start your list thusly: Guest #1: John Wayne Gacy, dressed as Pogo the Clown

HINT FOR BONUS: Assume your guests will not know anyone else at the party, so they could even wear their work clothes and might be in costume for all anyone else knows. For instance, say one of your guests is a train conductor. Just find a picture of him or her in conductor's uniform and add him to your guest list!

Has anyone ever actually picked up a book from BookCrossing? It's a free library by mail or chance.

bookcrossing: n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.

You've come to a friendly place, and we welcome you to our book-lovers' community. Our members love books enough to let them go — into the wild — to be found by others. Sharing your used books has never been more exciting, more serendipitous, than with BookCrossing. Our goal, simply, is to make the whole world a library.

BookCrossing is a free online book club of infinite proportion, the first and only of its kind. Inside, you'll find millions of book reviews and hundreds of thousands of passionate readers just like you. Let's get right down to it. You know the feeling you get after reading a book that speaks to you, that touches your life, a feeling that you want to share it with someone else? BookCrossing.com gives you a simple way to share books with the world, and follow their paths forever!

I have read some really offbeat books that I'd love to set sail like a message in a bottle on the oceans of the world. But I can't imagine giving up one of my books by Edmund Pearson. Someone did, though. Someone donated a copy of Queer Books to the world library, and many people have read this book and left comments.

From Bookcrossing:

This is a simply wonderful book by Edmund Pearson (better known, perhaps, for his essays on murders of his day, collected in "Studies in Murder" and "Murder on Smutty Nose") ....This one's much lighter in subject - in fact, it's more or less a history of the pop culture of the day (circa 1928), as evidenced in print. ... Pearson's style is drily sarcastic, a style of which I am fond; some might find him unbearably arch and/or old fashioned, but I like him.

A lot of people loved the book. A lot seemed to hate it.

"This reading a book about books is fun. I think I should like to read more books like this. Not reviews, not lit crit, but just fun observations about a particular genre at a particular point in time. "

"My! What a hoot of a book! I especially enjoyed the overview of the murder tracts and gallows broadsides (which, I imagine, is the reason GoryDetails bought the book in the first place), but the section on etiquette books was quite amusing as well."

"I'm having a very hard time getting through this book. I'm on the second chapter (about Fourth of July speeches) right now, and it's just not doing it for me. "

Thunderstruck The San Francisco Chronicle published a review of Erik Larson's new book about Dr. Crippen. The reviewer, Alan Deutschman, remarks in "How Marconi's invention helped catch a murderer" --

It would be foolish to argue with the outrageous commercial and critical success of Erik Larson's previous book, "The Devil in the White City," a finalist for the National Book Award in 2003, but I should confess right off that I had an unusual reaction to that finely crafted piece of narrative nonfiction. Larson's clever gimmick was to intertwine two true stories that happened in the same metropolis at the same time: the gruesome exploits of the serial killer H.H. Holmes and the creative and logistical triumphs of the architects behind Chicago's 1893 World's Fair.

Surprisingly, I found myself skimming through the chapters about the murderer to rush ahead to the threads about the builders, especially Larson's fond portrayal of the landscape master Frederick Law Olmsted. But I suspect that I'm probably anomalous among the book's multitude of fans: Surely it's the readers who love murder stories who have kept "Devil" on the national paperback best-seller lists for 135 weeks and counting, not the misfits who find quiet drama in landscape architecture.

Seems to me the reviewer might have it wrong: I happen to think a lot of people who read and enjoyed that book weren't the traditional true crime fans. I wonder whether a lot of the success of that case comes from people who otherwise wouldn't be caught dead reading true crime -- say, a book about H.H. Holmes all by his homely self. But pair it with a story that appeals to every planning commissioner in the country, and presto!

I happen to serve on my local planning commission, when I'm not studying murder cases. I have seen book reviews of Devil in the White City in a lot of the professional planning literature, and a true crime book review is, believe me, the last thing one expects to find in professional planning literature.

But unlike the fellow from the San Francisco Chronicle, I have to confess I found myself skimming the planning of the world's fair for the blood and guts. Go figure.

Headlines Have you noticed that most major journalism outlets online have gone entirely to lowercase headlines? Like, "How Marconi's invention helped catch a murderer," above. The reason:

Joyce Maynard began a reading for her new book, "Internal Combustion," Sunday afternoon with a quick story about her affair with J.D. Salinger. Maynard likes to talk about her 10-month relationship with the famous author, and when she began to wind down ("He handed me a $50 bill and told me to go away"), it was clear the past was threatening to upstage Maynard's current work.

The murder case she wrote about in her new true crime title, Internal Combustion, involves a suburban Detroit woman who went on trial for murder; her husband's head was split open with an axe! State of Michigan vs. Nancy Seaman was a mega-sensational case in the local press:

Seaman was the fourth-grade teacher who killed her husband, Bob, in 2004, placed his body parts in the back of the family Ford Explorer and calmly returned to work.

The most amazing fact of this case: she was overheard planning to poison his food, but went with the hatchet to the head in the end. (Shades of Lizzie Borden, anyone?!?)

Well, the review indicates that the author did not talk to the teacher and injected much of her own story in this book. Wikipedia surprised me with a thorough description of the scandals under "Further Exposure," if you haven't read enough. "Dual narratives" indeed. Sounds to me like three or four narratives at once....

Thunderstruck Historic True Crime God Erik Larson didn't want to write another dual narrative, but the chase scene from the life and death of Dr. Crippen (see the Clews version of the story) was too much to pass up, and now there's 300,000 reasons for Larson to feel comfortable with his choice of subjects -- and that's just the first press run.

The Real McCoy Do you remember a jerk named John Humble, who made the grandiose claim in letters and tapes that he was the Yorkshire Ripper, throwing the bloodhounds off the real man's trail? He got eight years for his fake letters, and this week his sentence was upheld. To get some real Yorkshire Ripper letters, best to talk to one of his former sweethearts. Sandra Lester (who may sound familiar) is selling her memorabilia, 180 letters by Peter Sutcliffe. The list is available online; they're being auctioned off by The New Criminologist.

Now don't get any crazy ideas about your next money-making hobby. I'm talking to you, "Miss R" -- when do you have time to write all those letters anyway?

Trail of FeathersLondon's Publishing News named this book by Robert Rivard one of the top ten true crime titles in its recent list of noteworthy paperbacks. I've heard of this page-turning true story from several other people. I couldn't find the other nine titles named on the London list -- if you come across it, let us know.

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What happened to the cool website Prison Sucks? It didn't always seem so much like homework.

More about the Villisca Mystery The terrific documentary created by filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle (right) about the 1912 axe murders in Iowa (see the Clews review) has renewed interest in the old mystery.

Beth Klingensmith already knows the case well -- her great-great-great grandmother was the victim of matricide by Henry Moore, which makes Beth a cousin of the alleged serial killer who may have been responsible for the eight murders in Villisca. After years of study, Beth believes that the Villisca murders may be connected to five similar cases across the Midwest. She has written a 33-page academic paper for a master's level class at Emporia State in Kansas that looks at connections between the cases and is an excellent exploration of the theory. Beth is versed in criminology and the depth of research is obvious. She has mapped the crimes and charted the similarities between the murders in Villisca, Iowa and Colorado Springs, Colorado; Monmouth, Illinois; Ellsworth, Kansas; Paola, Kansas; and Columbia, Missouri as well as four similar crimes from the era.

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Of all the reviews... I thought it interesting that famous film critic Roger Ebert has announced a "best of" book, and of all the reviews he could have pulled from his drawer as examples of his best, it is the fictional telling of the story of serial killer Aileen Wournos that he points to as an example of one of his best reviews ever:

We are told to hate the sin but not the sinner, and as I watched "Monster" I began to see it as an exercise in the theological virtue of charity. It refuses to objectify Wuornos and her crimes and refuses to exploit her story in the cynical manner of true crime sensationalism -- insisting instead on seeing her as one of God's creatures worthy of our attention.

Which is an interesting remark to make... as long as he never intends to run for public office.

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The Interpretation of Murder Now here's a new fictional historic crime title that's right up our dark alleys. The Interpretation of Murder is a thriller written by Jed Rubenfeld, professor of law at Yale. It's set in 1909 during Sigmund Freud's visit to New York City and is billed as "a spellbinding thriller featuring Sigmund Freud and the search for a diabolical killer in turn of the century New York." From the website for the book:

In 1909, Sigmund Freud arrived in New York for what would be his only U.S. visit. Upon his return to Vienna, he rarely spoke of the trip, but referred to Americans as "savages" for the rest of his life. What befell the great genius during his journey to these shores?

And another that has people citing Caleb Carr....

The Beautiful Cigar Girl The Mary Rogers mystery has made it into fiction again. This one is by well-known mystery author Daniel Stashower. From the recent New York Times book review:

Murder in the city casts a peculiar spell, a mixture of horror, fascination and relief. One more member of the herd has been picked off, but it was somebody else who attracted the invisible, anonymous hand that could strike anyone at any time. When the victim is a beautiful woman, sex enters the equation, and you have front-page news.

That was certainly the case in the summer of 1841, when Mary Rogers, a young saleswoman at John Anderson's Tobacco Emporium on Lower Broadway in Manhattan, disappeared and turned up a few days later floating in the Hudson River. Her baffling murder, a sensation at the time, attracted the attention not only of the city's fire-breathing newspaper editors, but also of Edgar Allan Poe, who assigned his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the crime.

Their converging stories are the twin strands that Daniel Stashower neatly ties together in "The Beautiful Cigar Girl," his atmospheric, suspenseful re-creation of a crime, a city and a writer as doomed as the victim he wrote about...

Mr. Stashower, deftly interweaving contemporary press accounts of the murder and the investigation into his narrative, vividly recreates the atmosphere of the period in a moody, sepia-toned style that recalls "The Alienist" by Caleb Carr and "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. Cutting back and forth between the Rogers investigation and Poe's life, he gradually brings his two subjects to the point of convergence, creating a compelling portrait of Poe along the way.

Anyone who can blend Caleb Carr and Erik Larson has earned a spot on my wish list while I wait for someone to publish a Carr-esque title that is not set in New York.

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Murder in Room 103 More than one person has brought to my attention the terrific article appearing on CourtTV.com by Harriet Ryan -- it's an article called Murder in Room 103 about a case in Seoul, South Korea. "A beautiful exchange student is murdered. Another American confesses. Why is the crime unsolved?" (The rendering requires broadband connection and Media Player to fully appreciate.) "This is a good, thorough job of reporting a bizarre crime and even more bizarre investigation," says one of my correspondents. "Normally, I'm not much on Court TV stuff, but this story is exceptional."

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If you can't get enough Clews well, Todd Matthews was kind enough to ask me some questions about blogging and true crime in general for a text version of his Missing Pieces radio program, and the Q&A is linked here. I really do need to update that stale old picture. I'm much better looking these days. Though it doesn't stop me from saying things that maybe I wouldn't on reflection. Like that. Okay, I'm done for the day....

The Columbia Journalism Review published a fascinating article written by author Steve Weinberg telling journalists -- or true crime authors, or true crime readers, or bloggers, or whoever is interested in the subject -- exactly how to go about determining and proving, in ten easy steps, a case of wrongful conviction.

There may be a Pulitzer in it for you.

The Columbia Journalism Review is the premier academic publication in the field of journalism. The article discusses three books about wrongful convictions,including one written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who proved a wrongful conviction.

The title of the article is "Wrongful Convictions: Three Books and Ten Lessons for Journalists."

“My experience as a newspaper reporter and author," Edward Humes writes in his new book, Mean Justice, "taught me that claims of innocence from convicted criminals are often made, seldom proved, and usually refuted."

This article goes on to list very specific tips I thought equally applicable to appellate counsel.

So here is a summary of the ten rules.

ONE. In the criminal justice system, investigators often rely on statistical patterns. ..when the beginning hypothesis hardens into a conclusion too quickly, contradictory evidence might be misinterpreted or overlooked.

TWO. The reputations and records of the defense attorneys matter.

THREE. Honest mistakes or officially sanctioned lawlessness can occur in every step of the investigative process.

FOUR. Then there are the prosecutors. It seems unthinkable to many journalists that prosecutors -- officers of the court sworn to uphold justice -- would intentionally withhold exculpatory evidence, encourage witnesses to lie, or present testimony known to be untrue. But such practices are common in wrongful convictions.

FIVE. Evaluate the witnesses....Have there been inconsistencies over time in the testimony of a particular witness?

SIX. Examine the documents, build a chronology.

SEVEN. Think about the jury. In all three of these books it became obvious to the authors that many jurors give only lip service to the axiom "innocent until proven guilty."

EIGHT. Don't rule out a criminal conspiracy... Victims of Justice ends with the indictment of seven prosecutors and sheriffs deputies.

NINE. Don't expect a lot of cooperation when investigating the investigators.

TEN. Be skeptical of journalistic accounts. Reporters often are spoon-fed by prosecutors or, less often, by defense attorneys. This can lead to selective use of evidence in the journalistic account, conscious or unconscious.

That caution holds even for wrongful conviction books.

This article cites three very interesting books, including the Pulitzer winner. I'll put some Amazon links at the end of this post to those books named in the article.

Historically, women have always had to do something particularly awful to be convicted of a serious crime, and to sentence a woman to death – oh! That didn’t happen all that often. Especially when the female in question was good looking. The law has always made an ass of itself when there’s a beautiful woman in the dock.

And don’t argue with me about it. I’ve been trying to prove it to you, see.

One of the most beautiful, indeed absolutely stunning women ever convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the United States of America was a gal by the name of Toni Jo Henry. That’s her, photographed in her cell on the morning of her scheduled execution. Her jailers opened up a telephone line to the governor’s office, and Toni Jo waited on her last hope in life, mindful that women – especially unusually attractive women – and especially in the South – were not generally put to death, no matter what they’d done.

And she was a looker. Nearly every description ever printed of her focused on her eyes. Toni Jo was “slim, hard-faced, flint-eyed,” “smouldering-eyed,” with her “snapping black eyes, and her long, wavy blue black hair.”

After three trials, three convictions, and three pronouncements of the awful sentence, she probably expected to die. But still she was light-hearted about it. As the photographer fussed with his camera, Toni Jo said, “I’ve smiled twice, mister. You haven’t shot yet. Have you any idea how much talent is being wasted here today?”

It was one of many jokes she cracked as she waited for the phone to ring, chain-smoking and making small talk. “That lighter is guaranteed for a lifetime,” she said at one point. “You know one person whose lifetime lighter lasted a lifetime.”

Alas, Toni Jo wasn’t always quite so funny.

Her real name was Annie Beatrice, but that was a little too frou-frou for a girl whose mother died when she was four. Raised by an aunt, she dropped out of grade school and started running away and ramming the roads when she was a teenager. By the time she was 17, she was known all over her home town of Lake Charles, Louisiana as a “lewd woman.” She fell into prostitution and drugs and all the other disgusting things implied in “lewd.” She was arrested several times for assault, larceny, and vagrancy. She snipped a man’s ears with a pair of scissors and went to jail for awhile. “Lots of men have loved me – but I hate ‘em,” she said. They called her “the most ornery gal east of the Mississippi” and the “bad girl of the bayou” and “tiger girl.”

But when she met Cowboy, a/k/a Claude Henry, she managed to turn herself around. That’s his photo. He doesn’t look like anything extraordinary, but Toni Jo was all over it. Cowboy called her a swell kid. He got her off cocaine. He said he loved her, and so she married him.

But even when they met, he was on bond for a murder charge for the murder of a police officer. After they were married, Cowboy drew 50 years for murder and went to the big house in Huntsville. Toni Jo went crazy and vowed that the law could not come between them. She decided she would break him out of prison if she had to do it with her own two hands, because she’d do anything – she’d “hang four times” for Cowboy.

Love makes you do crazy things.

Like steal some guns and ammo. Like set off on foot to get from Louisiana to Texas with some wiry good-for-nothing half-boyfriend slash accomplice in tow, a punk named Harold Finnon Burkes.

Like pull a pistol on some traveling salesman dumb enough to stop to give you both a ride. Like make the poor automobile owner strip naked and beg for his life before you shoot him.

After Toni Jo murdered J.P. Calloway, her squeamish companion made a remark she didn’t like and she called him a yellow rat and cracked his head with the butt and left him behind. That, of course, turned out to be a big mistake, because he was a rat, and before she knew it she was in a jail cell.

She wouldn’t talk, so they brought her husband from prison to wring a confession from her. “Please honey tell them the truth,” he said, over and over. So she did, admitting they bumped the guy off. “I let him say his prayers and then gave it to him right between the eyes,” she said.

Toni Jo Henry went on trial in Lake Charles, where her reputation preceded her. The judge let a huge crowd into a courtroom so packed sometimes the defense lawyers couldn’t see all the jurors. The flashbulbs sometimes drowned out the arguments of counsel. And all in attendance let their wishes be known. During the trial various audience members made the hanging sign by drawing their fingers across their throats while looking at the jurors. When jurors went to lunch, they heard men and women alike cry out, “hang her,” “hang that bitch.”

On the first appeal in State of Louisiana v. Henry, the Supreme Court of Louisiana said:

The populace clamored for the death penalty. They demanded the life of the accused and clearly manifested their desires to the jury by signs and gestures which could not be misunderstood. The trial was attended by throngs. Hundreds more than could be seated crowded into the courthouse. The courtroom was literally packed and jammed with spectators. The judge says that more than 150 either stood or were seated within the railing which separated his stand from the space reserved for spectators. The record clearly shows that they were present not merely through interest, but for the purpose of letting it be known that they demanded the death penalty…. public sentiment against the accused was at fever heat…. no punishment inflicted upon the accused except that of death would appease the wrath of the throng.

She got a new trial. The same result followed, so they gave her a third trial. But they ran out of excuses and finally set a date in 1942 for Toni Jo to sit in the Chair. Cowboy escaped from a prison farm a few days before she was supposed to be electrocuted in a desperate effort to reach her; he was captured two days later.

In a jailhouse interview just before she was supposed to die, Toni Jo decided she might as well “kick the lid off.” She talked about Cowboy.

“I was a bad girl at 13, a drug addict at 16,” she said. “Nobody ever cared about me before him. That guy is the king of my heart. He gave me a home and he got that drug monkey off my back.

“I remember the day I told him I was a cokie and the look on his face. He thought I just smoked marijuana and grinned. But when I told him my train went a lot further than marijuana he took me to a hotel room and I lay there in bed for a week and he would come in now and then and ask me how I was doing. He’d slap my face with iced towels and we’d both laugh.

“I think condemned persons fret more about losing contact with human beings than anything else. You feel so out of it. It’s more than these bars: it’s more like a hellish battle with long distance when she won’t give you a number – anybody’s number—not one friendly human being’s number. You get so cold and pretty soon you’re a freak even to yourself.”

The reporter asked about the man she killed, the man who left behind a wife and daughter. “I’ve asked myself a thousand times and I don’t know why I killed that man,” she said. “I’m willing to walk down to the chair and I’ll take my medicine.”

Toni Jo said her dying wish was to talk to Cowboy, and though it violated the rules, they let her call him. She did all the talking and he did all the crying. ”I know it has to come and I’m ready for it, honey,” Toni Jo told Cowboy. “I’m glad to have known you for the short time that I did. I’m sorry that things had to turn out this way. But you’ve got to live right, Claude.”

Toni Jo hung up after the call with Cowboy.

The governor, by the way, never did call.

Toni Jo promised to go quietly, except she squawked when they shaved her head. They promised to hunt up a scarf for her to put over her bald head, knowing the photographers were lined up outside to see her taken to the death room. One of those photos, at right, shows her jailer looking more sad than Toni Jo.

Toni Jo Henry was electrocuted November 28, 1942. The wire services all reported that Cowboy Henry screamed and thrashed and destroyed his cell in his grief.

In a final awful coda, Cowboy was released from prison a handful of years after his wife's execution. The decade didn't end before Cowboy Henry was shot and killed and raced into the dark to be with his bad girl from the bayou.

Lo and behold, a true crime book is now # 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The word is his publisher printed 2.8 million copies. Most of the reviewers compare John Grisham to Truman Capote, which is quite the statement. Still others feel his book is a "handbook perfectly outlining how true-crime narrative should be constructed. " I had to laugh when I read that one reviewer thought he was reading fiction -- “It wasn’t until I was about halfway through it that I realized this Grisham book is a true crime book.” Maybe that's the ticket: true crime can conquer America by stealth.

Many people commented on this site or privately about the post appearing here on Coral Eugene Watts. The remarks are very interesting and worth reading. True crime author Corey Mitchell published a book about Watts just a few months ago that I had to pick up and will be telling you more about the day after its arrival. The title is Evil Eyes.

Meanwhile, Father Gerald Robinson is asking to be released on bond pending the appeal for his murder conviction. The outcome of the motion should tell us something about the chances for success overall. The Father's persistent cadre of supporters continues in its dogged effort to raise funds and awareness for his cause. Several hundred people in Toledo who believe the priest was railroaded attended a fundraiser for him, though it was the "small group of protesters" who got the headline. And the Toledo Free Press has jumped on the bandwagon and bashes his supporters as "sick, warped, wrong" and yet "sweet" -- for "forgiving" him. Then goes on to suggest that the website supporting Father Robinson should be called "www.ChickenDinnerInHell.com."

How's this for an idea: we're convinced the guy is innocent and the scientific evidence proves it!

The first book about Father Robinson's case is now in print. It was authored by the Toledo Blade reporter, David Yonke, who grappled with the case while covering it for that publication. The author remarks that the case has made him toss and turn, and in an interview, conceded that he was undecided on his guilt until the closing arguments of counsel.

Well, he's not alone in having his sleep disrupted by this murder case, though I think we turn and toss for entirely different reasons.

An overall favorable review of the book appeared in the Blade last week. The reviewer is critical of the author's

groundless extrapolations. (How did the author know that the killer's mind "was a dull roar, like a freight train was roaring through it" or that the killer was "whispering in Latin" as he repeatedly stabbed the nun?)

The book is available from Amazon, though I'm still undecided on whether to read it. I don't know if it would be good for my blood pressure -- or my marriage. Poor Mr. James's ears are still a bit bent on this one.

Funny, though, how John Grisham's expose of a wrongly convicted man is the hottest bestseller in the country right now, while those who try to go about proving a more recent example of justice run amok are skewered as sick and warped.

Legendary true crime writer Edmund Pearson once said, "The Borden case is without parallel in the criminal history of America. It is the most interesting, and perhaps the most puzzling murder that has occurred in this country."

For two decades I agreed with him.

But yesterday I watched a two-hour documentary on an unsolved murder case from Iowa. Now my head has been entirely spun around, and I look not to the east but to the west and a tiny town called Villisca, Iowa -- and I stand corrected. Pearson, you were wrong all along. The greatest unsolved murder in the history of America took place in 1912, and the film Villisca: Living With a Mystery is an excellent introduction to a case that will leave all students of true crime saying, "Lizzie who?"

If Lizzie Borden is Historic True Crime 101, then the obscene axe murders that took the lives of eight people (including six children) as they slept, destroying the psyche of this quiet Iowa town on June 10, 1912, is Historic True Crime 401: it will call on all you think you've learned about criminology.

Villisca: Living With a Mystery is the single best true crime documentary I have ever seen (and I do believe I've seen virtually all of them). With exquisite care, never dipping into the sensationalism that would have been within easy reach (and which the residents of Villisca would not have tolerated), the filmmakers relay the facts of the murders, the effect they had on the townsfolk, the suspects, the theories, the courtroom dramas. It even includes a (tastefully done) computer animation of the crime scene and interviews with a forensic psychiatrist as well as FBI profiler Robert K. Ressler, a very nice touch for those of us who like to hear from profilers on everything. The movie also features top-notch production values and narration, interviews with writers, historians, and residents, and hundreds of historic photos of the people and places involved (which are not repeated, and I'm glad of this. Endless repetition of the same photos over and over and over is one of my primary beefs with most true crime stories depicted on film and TV.)

The murders of a prominent businessman, his wife, their four children, and two young girls who were visiting that night just terrified the town. They couldn't explain a crime like this -- eight people, killed in their beds with an axe; one of the victims was posed afterward -- how could an early twentieth century mind wrap itself around it? There were no witnesses, no fingerprints, no apparent motive, and it was never solved. Descriptions of the murder scene strongly reminded me of Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon, for those who know that reference (Amazon link).

For decades, residents of Villisca argued about who committed the murders, when they would talk about it at all. Was it the state senator, who certainly had ample cause to hate? Was it the preacher, the profoundly mentally ill Englishman known as a peeping Tom and pervert, who confessed to the slayings? Or was it a serial killer who was implicated in a string of similar butcheries and who kept newspaper clippings on the crime? While the film does not purport to have the final answer, it certainly is a satisfactory exploration of the horrific event.

The film has received universally good reviews, with all Amazon reviews giving it the full five stars and glowing viewer comments on IMDb such as --

"An enjoyable movie for crime buffs and historians -- very well presented."

"Great. I wasn't expecting to get so caught up... keeps you glued to the story... an excellent murder mystery and a good historical documentary worth seeing."

"I... was captivated...this story will knock your socks off."

"Two hours well spent."

"Absolutely engaging! ... Like Ken Burns... the attention to detail, accuracy, use of animation to take the viewer into the home and town all make this film credible and engaging."

"What a wonderful piece of work!"

The comparison to legendary documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is certainly appropriate, for this film is in his league. The film is so absorbing that I completely forgot at several points that I meant to take notes and had to watch it again. Though I would have watched it again anyway and will watch it again in the future and am glad to have my own copy.

If you have seen this film, and/or have studied this murder case, I would love to hear your opinions. I find myself utterly absorbed in this mystery to the point that I added a "Villisca" category to Clews (at left) and want to explore it further. The movie's official website features quite a lot of content, as does the "official site" of the murders. A genealogy buff has created a website featuring some of the original newspaper coverage. The Villisca Historical Society also has a website that delves into the mystery in detail.

Murder often cuts deep in a small community, searing the hearts of men, women, and children alike. Sometimes those children, scarred by events they couldn’t fathom at the time, grow up to explore the crimes that ended their days of innocence.

Some of the most fascinating and well-reviewed books in the true crime genre have been part crime tale and part childhood memoir. The most famous book to successfully blend reminiscence with research is the definitive Lizzie Borden book, Victoria Lincoln’s A Private Disgrace. The author grew up in Fall River, had strong memories of the strange old woman who lived alone on The Hill, and explained Miss Borden’s crimes as no other has before or since.

Other examples include James Ellroy’s My Dark Places, about the murder of his own mother when he was ten years old; Ron Franscell’s forthcoming book Fall: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town, which explores the awful crime that destroyed the lives of the two little girls who lived next door to him in Casper, Wyoming; and Green Fields: Crime and Punishment Haunt a Home Town, a work-in-progress from author Bob Cowser that will explore the kidnapping and murder of a girl who was in the author’s first-grade class.

Jerry’s Riot: The True Story of Montana’s 1959 Prison Disturbance is another in this echelon, and I just finished reading this impressive piece of scholarship. The author, Kevin S. Giles, was the son of a prison guard who worked at one of the toughest prisons in the United States at a terrible, pre-reform era of widespread prison disturbances in America. Between 1952 and 1955, there were 47 riots in U.S. prisons.

The author’s father barely escaped becoming a hostage in a bloody standoff triggered by an arrogant and ambitious new warden who disturbed the delicate balance of power in a place filled with shanks and stingers, cons and psychos, and two particularly disturbed men – a burglar who’d been incarcerated for all of his adult life and his murderous teenage boyfriend.

The sheer depth of Giles’ research is impressive. The way the story is structured is also glue on the reader’s hands. There is a slow, detailed, agonizing buildup to the fatal events, and Giles never tips his cards before he starts playing trump.

But what really held me fast to the book was the enormous quality of the prose. (Giles has several years of newspaper writing and editing experience.) I read several paragraphs two or three times in appreciation of it. When a writer spends a full decade not only conducting hundreds of interviews but reflecting on what he’s writing, when the narrative offers genuine insight into the events, when the story is more than just a story to the author, it quite plainly shows. Take this excerpt about the moment that a prison guard realized that things were about to go horribly wrong:

For a few moments only silence came to his ears, and in prison, silence deafens. Here, a dictionary of sounds lay open in Clyde Sollars’ mind, as it did for every guard, ready for quick reference. In this prison of a thousand eyes, danger usually came first to the ears. Sounds that fill the prison alarm new guards. As months pass those sounds become a pattern of routine. The prison at its safest was a numbing routine and a guard was soon to learn that he should listen close when the routine changes.

From somewhere in the maze of rooms came an urgency of shoes on tile. They weren’t squeaks of new shoes but the warnings of a struggle. Sollars felt curious and then afraid. He crept into the lobby. Here in this gloomy room, where convicted men had tromped a trail in the linoleum, he saw no carpenters, nor did he see anyone else. Where was Jones, the turnkey guard? And why were both barred doors to the yard standing open?

That very second, as Sollars comprehended a guard’s greatest fear, a squat and sweating convict rumbled into the lobby from Deputy Warden Ted Rothe’s office. His big fist clutched a thin ugly knife, red with blood….

You can read (or watch) Shawshank Redemption forty times and learn less of real prison life in the era than in a chapter of this book. What struck me most was the sheer foreseeability of the fatal riot; the prison itself was a disaster waiting to happen. As a "criminal city," Montana State Prison was "backwater Bastille," rotting and old -- half the prisoners used buckets for toilets. Some of the guards were illiterate and recruited from bus depots; some were corrupt; some were elderly; none had any formal training. And they were outnumbered more than 30 to 1.

Giles also paints a stunning portrait of the ringleader, Jerry Myles, who had several mothers and names until he drifted "into the arms of crime." In Leavenworth and Alcatraz, he learned more about prison administration than the men who guarded him. He became a "professional convict," a "penitentiary homsexual," a "bull in heat." In 1955, he was briefly paroled. He selected Montana State as his next home based on rumors of poor conditions there. Jerry Myles deliberately committed a burglary in Montana and waited for police to arrive, hurriedly pleaded guilty so he could gain admittance to one of the worst prisons in the country, then cooly planned his mayhem, including a list of the prison officials he planned to execute:

Myles would relish each tragic and dangerous moment. Those moments would be building blocks, and after he had constructed a monument to himself that stood high and public and sated his deepest desires for glory, and after the streets of Deer Lodge filled with onlookers and all the papers wrote about what he had done and hostages' wives cried and he could feel anguish of his captive guards in the heavy cool air of the cell house, he would commit murder before his monument toppled. Two dozen hostages waited to die....

Giles wrote an article about one of the interviews he conducted for the book which is a taste of the book itself. Jerry’s Riot is available from the publisher or it can be purchased on Amazon.

Congratulations go out to the author for this achievement; one hopes this book acts as sunlight to drive away some of the demons that once cursed the people of Deer Lodge, Montana, still haunted by this long-ago prison disaster.

NewspaperArchiveMy most very favorite site on the internet. Millions of digitized, text-searchable newspapers from across the U.S. and the world. If my computer somehow froze up and I had access to only one website, this would be it.

Paper of Record Another pay-to-play website that features searchable historic newspapers. Canada is particularly well represented in its collection.